South Park Takes on Minecraft and Violence

South Parks latest episode features Minecraft and tackles media violence by reversing it and putting the kids in the role of concerned parents.

The political and media assault on video games as a ridiculous scapegoat for violence has reached an amazing new low in recent years. So it seems only fitting that South Park would take on the controversial topic in its latest episode last night. The episode included an appearance by the popular sandbox building game known as Minecraft, or as one clueless father called the Xbox 360 version in an effort to cast blame away from his own irresponsibility for leaving his gun in a position to be claimed and taken to school by his 9-year-old Â a zombie slaying game. Seriously, read that story. It will amaze you. My favorite quote says all you need to know:

"They use hammers to dig and knives and guns to protect themselves from zombies," the boy's father said.Â

But as South Park often does, it takes and twists things to show people just how silly they are. The short version, without going too deep into spoiler territory, the kids become concerned that their parents may act out the violent television programs that they watch after an incident occurs. To prevent more violence believed to have been caused by the violent programming, the kids enact a Minecraft-related password lock on their parent's cable boxes to block the channels, leading to a sharp jab at Time Warner. Suffice to say, the parents set out to crack the code.

The overall story pretty much reverses the outcry we see in video games and other media of current and past generations by putting the kids in the role of parents and vice versa. But in the end, South Park pretty much says what most reasonable people think about the situation - television shows and video games are simply an outlet for good fun, after poking fun at quite literally everyone of course. If you missed the episode, you can check it out online at South Park Central. And if it needs to be said, this is NSFW if you plan to watch it.